Round Trip Airline Ticket - Use only return portion?

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

I have purchased four round trip tickets on AA via Cheap Ticket. I now need to change one of the tickets to leave on a week day instead of the weekend for the going portion of the trip. AA charges 100 and Cheap Ticket charges 50 to do this. I checked and am able to purchase a one way round trip on Southwest for less.

My question is can I use the round trip ticket for the return portion only?

[Pat H Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pat H]

No, if you don't use the outbound portion, the airline will cancel the entire ticket.

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

No, if you don't use the outbound portion, the airline will cancel the entire ticket.

I'm afraid that is correct. And it's really not fair, since if you only use the outbound, they can't penalize for not using the return... I am doing that this Easter

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

OK so if you stand to lose the fare anyway heres the way around losing both ends. Check in for the first flight by the web (or actually at the airport if you are around there when it's available) then "miss" the flight. The second flight will still be there. It also helps to print out the boarding pass ahead of time for all the flights as you can. They don't know how you got there at that point so the return ticket is still good. I have seen that work when the plans my daughter made to fly to Orlando and back home through Philly got changed (by her). She purchased a cheap one way to Philly from another airline earlier in the day so instead of sitting at the airport for 3 hours she had time to go visit in Philly, then planned to use her original connecting flight back to NY. Sure enough the airline said no when we told them thats what we wanted to do. They wanted 5 times the original (admittedly non-refundable) fare to change it using the same airline but different flights. So I had her get her original boarding pass but take the new, cheaper, earlier flight on a different carrier. At the same time she got the first boarding pass she also got the second for the connection - bingo! The second boarding pass got used without a problem even though she "missed" that first leg. Since my wife was also booked on the original flight to Philly and didn't change flights she knows that her seat got used so they got to sell it twice. Why they told us no to begin with is beyond me as we weren't asking for a refund just to use only one part of what we bought. Anyway it all worked out. I do see where with security and all there could be a question raised but if thats your seat and you check in to claim it they have no right to sell it again or say you can't use the other half IMO.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

OK so if you stand to lose the fare anyway heres the way around losing both ends. Check in for the first flight by the web (or actually at the airport if you are around there when it's available) then "miss" the flight.

This makes sense but once they do a seat count I believe that will void out the ticket. If it is an over booked flight best thing to do is go there and pray that they ask for volunteers.

[Pat H Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pat H]

You're talking about 2 different things. One is skipping the entire outbound flight and the other is missing the first leg of a multi leg trip. You can get away with the second one especially if you call and notify the airline that you won't be able to make the the first leg but will be able to catch the flight at the connection point. I think your daughter got lucky.

Just because you checked in, doesn't mean the airline can't take your seat. If you are not on the plane within 10 (or is it 15 mins) of departure, they can give your seat away.